asked the Secretary of State for the Social Services what is the average delay in admission to those hospitals serving the Petersfield constituency for patients awaiting minor remedial operations and for those awaiting major surgery.

The length of time a person may have to wait for admission to hospital for a minor or major surgical operation depends on a number of factors including the choice of consultant and hospital, the degree of urgency of the need for the operation, the specialty concerned and the length of the appropriate waiting list. Consequently waiting times vary considerably and a meaningful figure for average delay in admission is not available.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people in the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board area have been waiting for longer than 12 months for admission to hospital.

The information is not available, but of 125,252 patients admitted from the waiting lists to hospitals in the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board area during 1972—the latest year for which such figures are available—8,840 had been on waiting lists for more than 12 months.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people in the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board's area have been on the waiting list for admission to hospital for longer than 12 months ; and what were the comparable figures for each of the past five years.

The totals for each of the years 1968–1973 are as follows: